source: trunk/doc/src/examples/wiggly.qdoc@ 892

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/*!
    \example widgets/wiggly
    \title Wiggly Example

    The Wiggly example shows how to animate a widget using
    QBasicTimer and \l{QObject::timerEvent()}{timerEvent()}. In
    addition, the example demonstrates how to use QFontMetrics to
    determine the size of text on screen.

    \image wiggly-example.png Screenshot of the Wiggly example

    QBasicTimer is a low-level class for timers. Unlike QTimer,
    QBasicTimer doesn't inherit from QObject; instead of emitting a
    \l{QTimer::timeout()}{timeout()} signal when a certain amount of
    time has passed, it sends a QTimerEvent to a QObject of our
    choice. This makes QBasicTimer a more lightweight alternative to
    QTimer. Qt's built-in widgets use it internally, and it is
    provided in Qt's API for highly-optimized applications (e.g.,
    \l{Qt for Embedded Linux} applications).

    The example consists of two classes:

    \list
    \o \c WigglyWidget is the custom widget displaying the text
        in a wiggly line.

    \o \c Dialog is the dialog widget allowing the user to enter a
        text. It combines a \c WigglyWidget and a \c QLineEdit.
    \endlist

    We will first take a quick look at the \c Dialog class, then we
    will review the \c WigglyWidget class.

    \section1 Dialog Class Definition

    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/dialog.h 0

    The \c Dialog class provides a dialog widget that allows the user
    to enter a text. The text is then rendered by \c WigglyWidget.

    \section1 Dialog Class Implementation

    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/dialog.cpp 0

    In the constructor we create a wiggly widget along with a
    \l{QLineEdit}{line edit}, and we put the two widgets in a
    vertical layout. We connect the line edit's \l
    {QLineEdit::textChanged()}{textChanged()} signal to the wiggly
    widget's \c setText() slot to obtain the real time interaction
    with the wiggly widget. The widget's default text is "Hello
    world!".

    \section1 WigglyWidget Class Definition

    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.h 0

    The \c WigglyWidget class provides the wiggly line displaying the
    text. We subclass QWidget and reimplement the standard \l
    {QWidget::paintEvent()}{paintEvent()} and \l
    {QObject::timerEvent()}{timerEvent()} functions to draw and update
    the widget. In addition we implement a public \c setText() slot
    that sets the widget's text.

    The \c timer variable, of type QBasicTimer, is used to update the
    widget at regular intervals, making the widget move. The \c text
    variable is used to store the currently displayed text, and \c
    step to calculate position and color for each character on the
    wiggly line.

    \section1 WigglyWidget Class Implementation

    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.cpp 0

    In the constructor, we make the widget's background slightly
    lighter than the usual background using the QPalette::Midlight
    color role. The background role defines the brush from the
    widget's palette that Qt uses to paint the background. Then we
    enlarge the widget's font with 20 points.

    Finally we start the timer; the call to QBasicTimer::start()
    makes sure that \e this particular wiggly widget will receive the
    timer events generated when the timer times out (every 60
    milliseconds).

    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.cpp 1
    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.cpp 2

    The \c paintEvent() function is called whenever a QPaintEvent is
    sent to the widget. Paint events are sent to widgets that need to
    update themselves, for instance when part of a widget is exposed
    because a covering widget was moved. For the wiggly widget, a
    paint event will also be generated every 60 milliseconds from
    the \c timerEvent() slot.

    The \c sineTable represents y-values of the sine curve,
    multiplied by 100. It is used to make the wiggly widget move
    along the sine curve.

    The QFontMetrics object provides information about the widget's
    font. The \c x variable is the horizontal position where we start
    drawing the text. The \c y variable is the vertical position of
    the text's base line. Both variables are computed so that the
    text is horizontally and vertically centered. To compute the base
    line, we take into account the font's ascent (the height of the
    font above the base line) and font's descent (the height of the
    font below the base line). If the descent equals the ascent, they
    cancel out each other and the base line is at \c height() / 2.

    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.cpp 3
    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.cpp 4

    Each time the \c paintEvent() function is called, we create a
    QPainter object \c painter to draw the contents of the widget.
    For each character in \c text, we determine the color and the
    position on the wiggly line based on \c step. In addition, \c x
    is incremented by the character's width.

    For simplicity, we assume that QFontMetrics::width(\c text)
    returns the sum of the individual character widths
    (QFontMetrics::width(\c text[i])). In practice, this is not
    always the case because QFontMetrics::width(\c text) also takes
    into account the kerning between certain letters (e.g., 'A' and
    'V'). The result is that the text isn't perfectly centered. You
    can verify this by typing "AVAVAVAVAVAV" in the line edit.

    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.cpp 5
    \snippet examples/widgets/wiggly/wigglywidget.cpp 6

    The \c timerEvent() function receives all the timer events that
    are generated for this widget. If a timer event is sent from the
    widget's QBasicTimer, we increment \c step to make the text move,
    and call QWidget::update() to refresh the display. Any other
    timer event is passed on to the base class's implementation of
    the \l{QWidget::timerEvent()}{timerEvent()} function.

    The QWidget::update() slot does not cause an immediate repaint;
    instead the slot schedules a paint event for processing when Qt
    returns to the main event loop. The paint events are then handled
    by \c{WigglyWidget}'s \c paintEvent() function.
*/